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First Annual Report

We’ve been knocking out tapes for a year now (actually a little longer… but let’s call it a year, for the sake of the album title) – so we’re releasing a low-cost label sampler: new tracks by artists we’ve released over the last 12 months, and new tracks by artists we’re going to be releasing in the coming year. It’s pay what you like on download, and £4 for the tape – tape colour depends on what shells we’ve got available, but for now at least they’re on a lovely turquoise shell, with hand printed labels and the usual. Track by track details below:

Portland Vows – Mobile Bob Plant’s meditative musical explorations were one of our biggest hits this year, and his new stuff is going to please the fans he made (and make a whole load of new fans too, we reckon). Mobile develops the warm & repetitive formula laid down on Living With Animals – plenty more to follow with the new album in the spring too.

Stefano Leproto – Theme from Goblinvore The first collection of tracks culled from a stack of reel-to-reels we found on the car boot caused a stir in the spring: some even thought we were taking the piss, but no-one doubted the quality of the tunes. Some further recordings have cropped up elsewhere (out on reverbworship a few months ago – I’m not sure if there’s any left, or even how to order them, but it’s a great album), and here’s another to whet your appetite – it’s a bit battered from the tapes being poorly stored all these years, but it’s a banger. We also found some multitracks of another tune, which has been circulated among some friends who’ve done a load of remixes… also out in the spring.

Field Lines Cartographer – Magnetic Anomaly (Impulse Array Remix) Field Lines Cartographer released an album of lush, fuzzy slow-burning ambient trax back in the summer (still a few copies left, you should grab one if you haven’t already): here his techno alter-ego Impulse Array gives the title track a big-room techno refit – like a 9-minute rush on fine MDMA.

Preston Field Audio – Finches Foray We’ve just heard the Preston Field Audio album is one of The Quietus’ top 10 tapes of the year – totally deserved. This is a lolloping bass & fuzz heavy monster that we could actually see working well in a dark room with flashing lights. We’re working hard on making that a reality (also, Carl is working on a new album – keep your eyes peeled in 2017)

Yehoshua – Corrections Yehoshua’s recent EP of intense drones & stumbling house beats is still on regular rotation in the car – here he refines his sound even further with some warm, enveloping synths and minimalist guitar lines.

St James Infirmary – Wooden Baroque St James Infirmary has been a feature of the north-east underground for decades, and we’ve recently taken delivery of the masters for a truly uncategorisable album of his recent work, which we’ll be issuing next year. For the sampler he’s provided a louche and sleazy easy listening cover of his compatriot Richard Dawson’s ‘Wooden Bag’, which we love.

Hyberus – Accelerating Towards Synchronicity Hyberus were one of the first artists we released in 2015, a wildly varied collection of drones, bleeps and white noise (an attitude they carried on to their next release, a self pressed LP you can find here). For the sampler they’ve switched again, and turned in a post-punk-cosmic-disco epic. You probably didn’t see that coming…

Turantula – Harp Kino First album of 2017 is going to be an album of deep & banging techno from Turantula, latest guise of long-time Preston based producer Andy Bunting (listen to some of his more house-shaped productions as Viva Shade here). Harp Kino is a more subdued affair, marrying harp samples with low slung beats to head-nodding effect.

Polypores – Sleep Logic We’re loving the direction Polypores has taken his sound since his first album on Concrète in 2015, and hope he carried on in this direction: Sleep Logic is deep and icy Detroit-esqe techno, perfect for soundtracking late-night drives through post industrial wastelands. We’ll probably need as much of that as we can get over the coming years, hmm?

Otherchannels – Checkmate (Live) We’ve been keen on hearing more from Otherchannels since they played at Concrète a couple of years ago – Carl Brown (of PFA) and Tim Crompton’s live show for Christmas 2014 remains one of our very favourite gigs wer’ve put on – so we were delighted when this dropped into our inbox – a lovely slow-evolving ambient track built on a repeating, plaintive sample. Great news that Tim will be playing an Otherchannels set at our Christmas party with Them There Records on the 23rd – more like this please.

You can find the sampler here, and I’ll drop some into Action in the next few days – we’ll also have copies of all available releases at the Conti on the 23rd…